If you stopped average people on the street and asked them what the state capital of Nevada is, there’s a good chance many would say Las Vegas.

Well, that glittering shmaltzy place in the south of the state would seem to be the obvious choice. If not, then perhaps Reno, which used to be the biggest little city in the west but today it has become quite a big city in its own right, given the expansion of people — many of them from California.

Reno also used to be the place where unhappy couples would run to acquire quickie divorces when the sugar had come of their rapid marriages down south in Vegas. I’m not sure if the same practice exists these days.

But the fact is that the state capital of Nevada is Carson City, and with its surroundings of big-box stores and car showrooms, it looks like many other places in the west. The real downtown area is a place of quiet charm and leafy elegance.

The Paul Laxalt State Building was constructed in the late 1880s and at one time was home to the Post Office, Weather Bureau and U.S. District Court.

Children have fun playing in the water on a quiet Sunday morning in Carson City.

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

The attorney general’s office building in Carson City. (Photos by Trevor Summons)

From quite a distance away, the silver dome of the state building is visible and there is a second one too, although I couldn’t quite make out its use.

I arrived on a Sunday, and although I had been through there a few times I decided to take a closer look. Sometime back in the distant past, there was a rush to register companies in Carson City as there were some quite advantageous tax benefits. My own company did some of that but I never could quite work out if it was useful. That wasn’t my side of the business.

Today, at least on a Sunday, Carson City is a rather nice place with a small precinct with lots of children playing in and around the water fountain, while older relatives looked on from the terraces of an old hotel as they sipped lattes.

The office of the state attorney general seemed to be by far the biggest. In fact, it consumes three entire buildings so obviously there’s a lot of lawyering going on, or perhaps they’re sifting through my old firm’s lowered tax reports.

The name of the city was given in recognition of the famous Kit Carson, who is labeled a “mountain man.”

The term showed that Carson left his home in Taos, New Mexico, and lived a primitive life in the Rockies trapping beavers, which were used to make coats and also hats for men. He had to keep the pelts in storage until the jamboree where he would sell them and buy enough provisions to last him through another trapping season.

It was literally a hand-to-mouth existence.

When he wasn’t hunting animals, he developed a reputation as an Indian fighter and it is said that his clothes of once frozen deerskins helped ward off Indian weapons.

Carson wasn’t a healthy man and died of an aneurysm at age 58. He is buried in Taos alongside his third wife.

As to his links to the city that bears his name, I couldn’t find anything specific.

Trevor Summons writes about getaways in the Inland Empire and beyond. His book, “Trevor’s Travels (in Southern California),” is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers. Email trevorsummons@hotmail.com.